Twittering Machines

Bob Dylan
Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid
Original Soundtrack Recording

Director Sam Peckinpah didn’t know who Dylan was when it was recommended he be brought in to write music for his film. So Dylan went down to Mexico to audition:

“Sam says, ‘Who’s Bob Dylan?,’” recalls James Coburn.

“Oh yeah, the kids used to listen to his stuff. I was kinda thinkin’ of that guy Roger whatsisname, King of the Road guy, to do it.” And we all said, “What!! You gotta see Dylan,”…He said, “Okay, bring Dylan down.”…So the night we were over at Sam’s house and we were all drinking tequila and carrying on and halfway through dinner, Sam says, “Okay, kid, let’s see what you got. You bring your guitar with you?” They went in this little alcove. Sam had a rocking chair. Bobby sat down on a stool in front of this rocking chair. There was just the two of them in there…And Bobby played [his songs]. And Sam came out with his handkerchief in his eye: “Goddamn kid! Who the hell is he? Who is that kid? Sign him up!”

The story also goes when Dylan first showed up on the set of Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid to play his part as “Alias”, Kris Kristofferson joined him while director Sam Peckinpah showed them some dailies and Peckinpah was so pissed at the quality of the footage he stood up on his chair and pissed on the screen (Someone should compile all of the ‘people pissing on things’ stories like Jackson Pollock peeing into Peggy Guggenheim’s fireplace and separate the book into two sections – people who were drunk when they did it, and people who weren’t). All’s I can say is I love this movie, even the cut-version (sorry Sam), and I love the soundtrack especially “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” (who doesn’t?).

On “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”:

Drummer Jim Keltner cried, “There weren’t any overdubs on that, the singers were singing live, little pump organ, Roger McGuinn I think played [guitar]. This was for a particular scene in the movie when Slim Pickens is dying and that’s the first time I ever cried while I played. It was the combination of the words, Bob’s voice, the actual music itself, the changes, and seeing the screen…In those days you were on a big soundstage, and you had this massive screen that you can see on the wall, [with] the scene…running when you’re playing. I cried through that whole take.”

Jerry Fielding, who was brought in to ‘supervise’ Dylan on his soundtrack, thought, “It was shit.”

Starring Kris Kristofferson, James Coburn, and a cast of the crustiest cowboy character actors this side of Durango – Chill Wills, Katy Jurado, Jack Elam, Slim Pickens, Barry Sullivan, Dub Taylor, R.G. Armstrong, Elisha Cook, Jr. and Paul Fix. And of course Bob Dylan as “Alias”. Released in 1973 the soundtrack came out the same year.

I had an opportunity to see Eric Clapton perform “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” in Philly in the later ’70s and it was the highlight of his portion of that show. Muddy Waters had opened for Clapton which was the highlight of the entire show.

Bob Dylan
Blood On The Tracks

I started buying Dylan records in high school and more than likely tried to buy them in chronological order, as I did with Hendrix, even though I was starting roughly a decade past the original release date working my way to the present. I’m also not sure if Blood On The Tracks (1975) was the release where I caught up and became current with Dylan but it sure feels that way as if Blood On The Tracks was speaking directly to me in that moment, as odd as that is for a Platinum-selling LP.

This record feels like dark gray damp loss where every emotion is highlighted like autumn colors on a cloudy day. I’ve waited years to own it again on vinyl in part worried that it had turned cheesy or soft or not as sharp in the intervening years. I was wrong.

Bob Dylan (1962)
The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)
The Times They Are a-Changin’ (1964)
Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964)
Bringing It All Back Home (1965)
Highway 61 Revisited (1965)
Blonde on Blonde (1966)
John Wesley Harding (1967)
Nashville Skyline (1969)
Self Portrait (1970)
New Morning (1970)
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973)
Dylan (1973)
Planet Waves (1974)
past present

“A lot of people tell me they enjoy that album. It’s hard for me to relate to that. I mean, it, you know, people enjoying that type of pain, you know?” ~ Dylan in an interview with Mary Travers

Bob Dylan
The Brazil Series

The Statens Museum for Kunst /National Gallery of Denmark is home to the exhibit Bob Dylan: The Brazil Series running from September 4, 2010 through January 30, 2011. Who knew? I suppose a lot of people since Bob Dylan has been painting since the 1960s or as he says “I have always painted.”

Music From Big Pink

Of course there’s Dylan’s cover art for Planet Waves and Self Portrait as well as his painting for The Band’s Music From Big Pink.

“In a strange way I noticed that it purified the experience of my eye…” Bob Dylan on drawing

Bahia, 2010 © Bob Dylan. Acrylic on canvas, 121,9 x 91,4 cm

These new paintings are based on Dylan’s many visits to Brazil and were created specifically for this exhibit, about 40 paintings in all.

Favela Villa Broncos, 2010 © Bob Dylan. Acrylic on canvas, 106,7 x 142,2 cm

But few artists are afforded respect in more than one area of expression. Why is that? Are you your own toughest act to follow?

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Bob Dylan
Planet Waves

One of the things that happens when you’ve previously sold off your entire record collection and started anew is you have these holes in all the wrong places. I mean, you can’t buy everything you had in one shot and keep up with that tiny % of new stuff you can actually keep up with while discovering great old records and pay the electric bill.  So you have gaps where there should and used to be records. I hate that.

Dylan and The Band recorded Planet Waves in 1973, the same year and just a month before Mal Waldron recorded Up Popped The Devil. While I’d like to make some clever comparison, I can’t. I only mention this timely coincidence because it helps put into focus how vast music is. If the only thing I knew about these two records was learned from listening, you could have told me they were recorded in different countries or decades or planets and I’d have believed you. I love that.

I recently grabbed Planet Waves off the PREX shelves and stopped that gap and I did so so readily because Stephen placed it freshly in my mind. The only other thing I’ve got to say about Plant Waves is – what he said.

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